Harry Potter and the Heir
by inknamida
Summary: A young thief finds his way to Hogwarts in search of the dark wizards that kidnapped his brother, a half-trained wizard. A Harry Potter crossover with The Doctrine of Labyrinths series. Warnings for profanity, violence and sexual references.
1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter and the Heir

Summary: A young thief finds his way to Hogwarts in search of the dark wizards that kidnapped his half-brother, a half-trained wizard. A Harry Potter crossover with The Doctrine of Labyrinths series. Warnings for profanity, violence and sexual references.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Harry Potter series, or the characters of Mildmay and Felix and many elements and people from their pasts. Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, while Mildmay and Felix are characters from a very very well written, intriguing and INCREDIBLE series by Sarah Monette, "The Doctrine of Labyrinths" consisting of the books "Melusine", "The Virtu", "The Mirador", and the forthcoming "Corambis". I hope that you go read those books as they are some of the best reads I've had in a while. The first four chapters of the second and third books are available online at her website.

Chapter 1

_Mildmay_

I'm not entirely sure how I got to this strange place. It's full of children and magic, the combination of which frankly scares the shit out of me. The _château_ is also far too large, and the space within larger still. And it is haunted by _fantômes_. I try to hide from them best I can, but even when they are looking right at me they didn't seem to care. Guess they have all the fresh live meat they can hope for, and they don't give a fuck about one more scrawny little brat.

The kids all wear the same black uniforms, and even outside of uniforms most of them dress like bourgeoisie bastards, so I keep mostly to myself, hiding from them in empty rooms and alcoves, long forgotten hallways covered in dust. It ain't all that hard for me, 'cause I'm used to not being found. I'm still afraid one of them will see me and point me out to one of those creepy hocus-adults that I see from time to time. I found the kitchens easy enough, and it's a cinch to get food from them. The weird little fairies don't even care so long as I ask for it. The hardest part is at night. I sleep most of the day since that's when the kids are most active. That and there's a _couvre-feu_ at night, so I gotta keep moving or the warden and his chat will find me, and they'll know I ain't no hocus.

It must-a been the tenth night that I saw her. She was ignoring the _couvre-feu_, just like me. I thought she was an idiot for it, but it gave me something to spy on. And she was a beau, red hair, just like mine was without the dye. I could tell something was very fucking wrong with her though. Her eyes were empty at night. I fucking RAN after I saw her take the dead chicken and write something on the walls with its blood. Hope she's okay. It ain't her fault somebody put a spell on her. Of course that put all the hocuses on edge, and I had to hide in the walls that night. Not sure how I pulled that one off either. One minute I was staring at her being all batfuck crazy with the chicken, and the next I heard footsteps and found myself on the other side of a wall. The space was just large enough for a kid maybe twice my size to fit.

Once I figured it out, that trick became one of my favorites. It meant I could roam the halls in the afternoon, and have a safe place to sleep whenever. It meant I could look at her. Ginevra. My English ain't good, but it was improving as I listened to the kids, picking out a few of the louder voices to focus on. Her friends called her Ginny, short for Ginevra. And it was beautiful, like her. Voice in the back of my head says, "_Elle serai __entraîner la mort de vous,_ Milly-Fox." Keeper's voice warning me, she'll be the death of you. And I know it's true, but I don't listen.

It was full night again, just after midnight if the clocks in this place are right, and I know some of them ain't. I think it's been about a month since I first showed up. I turn my head as a catch a flash of red outta the corner of my eye. She's up late again. I wish I knew a way to help, but like I said, I ain't no hocus, and I don't know fuck-all about _magie_. She's heading into the haunted _toilettes_ that nobody ever uses, 'cause it's haunted. And then she looks back behind her, and I run through the wall to keep her from seeing me. Wrong fucking wall.

I gotta explain something here. I've got luck. Lots of it. Most of it bad luck. It comes with my line of work. When you're running from the police, and you manage to loose them, that's good luck. When you turn the next corner and run into your old friend Riddleshin, and by "old friend" I mean somebody who you absolutely humiliated in a fight and now wants you dead, that's the bad luck kicking in.

So yeah, I manage to avoid being seen by Ginny, but I also manage to run into the rear end of something fucking ugly crawling around in the walls. It's big, and covered in scales like a snake. I scream and get the fuck away from it, crawling out of the wall and back into the hallway. The hand on my shoulder surprises me, but I must be in shock because after seeing that _monstre_ I pretty much stop caring about whether or not I get caught, and I let this tall brown haired hocus lead me somewhere.

She's trying to ask me my name, but I can't fucking think straight, and my tongue's all tied up in knots like it gets when I'm scared or nervous. She takes a good long look at my scar, and she knows I ain't one of her kids. I hate my fucking scar. It's this big livid gash on the left side of my face. Got it in a knife fight a few years ago. I got cocky, and I'm damn lucky I didn't loose an eye or my life. 'Course now I've got this mark on my face I can't hide, and everyone looks at it. Keeper was pissed. Mostly I hate the way I can't feel anything on that side, and my mouth don't move right either. So I stay shut up, and eventually the woman leads me to the gargoyle statue I noticed on day 5 with some nifty stairs hidden behind. She says a magic word. Sounds like M'n'Ms or something. The stairs appear, and she leads me up them. I notice the moment the other guy moves behind us, blocking me in. I don't dare glance back, he might hex me for staring or something.

At the top of the stairs the femme-hocus opens a door, and there's this real old guy sitting behind a desk. Santa Claus old. With the beard too. He gives me this weird look with these creepy blue eyes that seem to pierce right through me without really seeing me... kinda like... Felix's. I do not wanna start that line of thought. He looks at me for a moment longer and then speaks in a deep old grandpa voice, "Hello there, young man. What might your name be?"

I might as well answer. Hocuses got a way of making you anyways. "M-Mildmay." My voice sounds ugly, haven't really said anything in the last month or so, and it's all hoarse from lack of use.

"Well Mildmay, please have a seat. We'd all like to know why you happen to be roaming the halls of our school. Lets start with your age."

I make like I'm gonna sit down on the seat opposite the desk that he's gesturing to, but at the last second I lean down just enough to grab the knife I keep in my boot. I know it's suicide. There's three of them, and they're all hocuses, but I gotta get out of here. They'll kill me. I launch myself at the old man, maybe if I can take him out the others won't know what to do with themselves. No such luck. There's a red light and I'm on my ass before I know it. And now all three of them have sticks pointed at me... _baguettes magique_. Well then... "_Baisez-moi en longueur_."

The hocuses on my side are glaring at me, one in shock and the other in anger. The old man raises a white eyebrow and says "Je vous pardonnez." Flash French too. Perfect accent. Not like my gutter-trash French. I gotta wonder for a moment if he understood the slurred phrase that came out or was just guessing it was something dirty. I really feel like disappearing, especially if these are the bastards that... that... Sacred bleeding fuck, why isn't the trick working? I try again to slip through the wall behind me, but it just won't fucking work. Damn hocuses and their fucking spells.

And the old man looks like he's expecting some sort of response.

"Eleven." Don't know if that made any sense to them, their expressions are too blank or angry to read. "I'm eleven years old... I think." That made sense to them. I can see the old man's and the woman's eyes widening in shock. "Now where the fuck are you keeping my brother."

"Keeping?" The old man looks confused, "No one here is being kept against their will. Let us start from the beginning and perhaps we can help you find him."

I still don't trust them. But I don't got a choice. "I'm Mildmay. I'm eleven, and all I know is that some evil hocuses kidnapped my brother and spoke English. So I'm here. Hand him over before I get mad." I glare at him. I've got a pretty mean death glare, what with my scar. Only thing worse is if I smile, and that ain't pretty.

I'm pretty sure that's genuine concern in his eyes. Okay, so maybe, just maybe, I fucked this up. "Mildmay, can you describe these "evil hocuses"?"

I gulp, "How do I know you ain't them?" He must sense how tense I am. If these guys aren't the ones I'm after, then I'm fucking lost, and so is my brother. If they are... then I'm fucked. I've killed a hocus before, but I had the element of surprise then, and I sure as fuck don't got it now.

Santa blinks. "Oh dear, I think we've forgotten OUR manners." He sets aside his wand and gestures over to the two hocuses still aiming their wands at me. "This is Professor Minerva McGonagall,and Professor Severus Snape. I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. I assure you we are not dark wizards, merely an establishment of education."

I nod. I don't really know what teachers are like, having never been in a real school myself, but they haven't tried hurting me yet. "The bastards wore black robes. Masks made of silver. Looked like skulls. Used wands. Killed... they killed Joline, and took my brother. Woulda killed me too if I hadn't been outside standing watch. Ran in when I heard her scream."

Minute I mentioned the masks their expressions changed. Fear, worry, uncertainty. They know who I just described. And they definitely aren't friends either. _L'ennemi de mon ennemi est mon ami_. "Wizard I asked in Le Havre said they were a group from England." I didn't mentioned that I killed the wizard to get this information. "Said they called themselves Death Eaters, and that they're hidden all over England acting like your average hocus."

"Yes, they are. I was not aware that they were active. The survivors of the group have been in hiding for some time now, ever since the fall of their Dark Lord." The old man looks pretty troubled, but I've got worse news.

"You mean this Voldie-morte? Rumor in France says he's not as dead as people think." That earns me a wary look. He's caught on pretty quick that I ain't your average kid. Not having parents'll do that to you.

"Who did you say you talked with?" Old man Albus sure has a lot of questions.

"Hocus named Cresset, Cerberus Cresset I think." Oh he recognizes that name. So does the other guy with the greasy black hair. The woman catches the old man's expression and looks confused herself with his reaction.

"Cerberus Cresset, a suspected dark wizard, was found dead in his house two months ago."

"Suspected? I heard he killed a lot of innocent folks back when there was this big scare about dark wizards. Even the flats were getting worried." I shot back. People'd been calling for that man's blood for years. I'd just been the first with the guts. They look confused, I probably slurred that a little too fast. "Everyone knows what Cerberus Cresset did, it's why he moved outta Paris." There, that must be slow enough.

"As I recall, Cresset was doing his job as the Witchfinder in France." Severus said.

"And you have no fucking clue what he decided his job should be." I tend to get a little pissed off with people that supported the murdering he did, probably because one of Keeper's friends was killed. Nice guy. Let me ask questions without making me feel like an idiot.

Albus interrupts him before he can say something snarkier than me, "You wouldn't happen to know anything about his death, would you Mildmay?" I give him the look that says "I ain't gonna answer that, or anything else about this matter".

"Very well then. Let's get back to the kidnapping. What exactly happened, and please give full names of the victims if you can."

So I tell him. 'Bout my brother and his magic lessons. About Joline, who said she was in the _Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons_ . She'd give him lessons during her vacations. He'd threaten to hex people that tried to hurt me. I'd stand watch. And then I heard her scream, and I knew she wasn't gonna survive whatever did that to her. I've heard screams like all my life. So I ran in there, waiting to hear the same damn scream come from my brother. Only it didn't. I got a glimpse, saw Felix being carried unconscious, and then they were gone. Bamf. Just like fucking that. There were three of them, adults by their height, and if they'd seen me, I'd have screamed too. Keeper had told me to forget about him, made sure a friend of hers in the Ministry found Joline's body. Told me to go to sleep. But I couldn't sleep, so I ran, and found the dark wizard I'd heard about. He said go north. I don't mention the part where I had to kill him. And here the fuck I am. Doing absolutely fucking nothing for the last month.

Albus is a very good listener. He even kept the others from commenting so I could talk... nice and slow so they can understand me. A few times I had to switch to French, just because I couldn't find the words I wanted. Seems like I have picked up a lot more of English here.

"Thank you Mildmay." I don't say nothing while I try not to look him in the eyes while I blush. I never could take praise well, but I still feel myself liking this old Santa man now that I know he ain't gonna have me killed. Might still throw me out, but I can handle that. "You said your last name was Harrowgate?"

He's got that wrong. "No, that's my brother's last name. Half-brother actually. Our mother was a whore in _Quartier Pigalle_. Our mother didn't give me a last name."

"So she named you just Mildmay?" There's a twinkle in his eye. If he thinks Mildmay's an amusing name...

"She joined a cult before I was born. My full name is 'Mild-may-your-sufferings-be-at-the-hands-of-the-wicked', but Keeper just cut it down to 'Mildmay'." Albus lets out a good natured chuckle, the other two look slightly humored, but are otherwise quiet.

"That's quite the mouthful." Yeah, I can barely say it myself with this scar in the way.

"Better'n 'Fly-from-fornication-and-blasphemy'." He raises a huge white eyebrow and I add, "Whore I met once named 'Butterfly'." He nods sagely with a smile peaking out from behind his beard.

"I don't know how much I can do, but I do recall the name Harrowgate. I have a feeling that an invitation to join our school was meant to be sent to your brother, but oddly enough, the information was mysteriously stricken from the record before letters were sent out. When we realized this a couple of years later, we had assumed that Beauxbatons or Durmstrang had extended their own invitations."

"Joline said Felix shoulda been picked up when he was eleven. We assumed nobody wanted him." Because he got picked up by a pimp first.

"Of course we would want him." Don't know what Albus meant by that. "I will have this incident investigated further." He nods to Severus, and I get this odd feeling from him. Don't like him much. Don't trust him at all. "I'll contact the British Ministry of Magic in the morning and have them investigate as well. We can return you home tomorrow. You live in Paris I take it?"

Fuck. 'Home.' "I ain't going nowhere without my brother. He'd be hard to hide. Got this ridiculously long red hair and spooky mismatch eyes, blue on the right, yellow on the left. People will remember seeing him." I have to swallow hard; 'ridiculous' was one of Felix's words and it hurts to say it. I can hear his voice chiding me for making an idiot of myself, again. "_Tu __être_ ridiculous _encore_, Mildmay."

"But Mildmay, I'm sure your mother..."

"Is dead." I snap at him, my voice harsh and heavily accented. "She died when I was four or five and Felix was about eleven." Right around the time he was supposed to get his letter I bet. "Can't go back, Keeper's probably pissed enough to drop me in an _oubliette_ and let me starve to death."

He frowns, not at me, but in thought. "Keeper. What exactly do you mean by that?"

"I'm a kept-thief." I give a shrug since there's not much more to it, but his worried expression also says he still wants more. "I mean I was. Our mother sold us both when we were little to keepers. They make sure we get food, and teach us things."

"What sort of things?" Why won't he just let it die? He must be able to tell I don't wanna talk about this anymore.

"Pickpocketing, lock picking, card sharping, you know, how to survive on the streets." I leave out the rest of the list: whoring, burgling, killing. "I got mostly lucky with mine. Felix didn't. His keeper died in the fire that got our mom and her cult. My keeper'd smack us around when we deserved it, or when we pissed her off. His liked to drown them in the _Seine _just because he got pissed at some minor thing."

"Oh my..." I've shocked the woman, Minerva, that's her name. She looks horrified, but she gives me a pitying look. Albus and the other guy don't make eye contact with me for a moment while they process their thoughts. "If you had magic. I'm sorry young man, but we would have remembered if your name was on our rolls. The spells we use to find students are..."

Albus cuts her off, "Not always perfect." I think he just said the opposite of what she was going to say. "Where were you staying before Minerva found you?"

"In one of the classrooms in a hall nobody uses. There's a bit of dust, but I managed to tear the drapes down into a blanket." I answer honestly.

"What?" Severus exclaims loudly, "You mean to tell us you've been here for days?"

I give him the "you are an idiot" look. "No, I'm pretty sure it's been about a month now."

I get a mix of the "you must be joking" and "how the hell did you manage that" looks. Before they can ask, I try and explain. "I found this _château_, and the doors were open and a lot of kids were around, so I just went in. Of course then I had to hide from the students and teachers, and then there's your _couvre-feu_ so I had to hide from that weird cat and the cleaner guy."

"But how could a muggle hide for a whole month?" Minerva asks.

"Ducked into the walls. Some of them ain't so solid sometimes." I shrug. I don't exactly understand if it was this place or something else that let me hide. "Guess it just likes me?"

Severus shakes his head and asks me, "If you are so good at hiding, then why did you get caught now."

"Yes, I found you screaming like bloody murder." Minerva, wide-eyed, remembers the reason I'm in this fucking room getting grilled.

"I ran into this huge fucking _monstre_ in the space between the walls. Luckily it was its tail and not its head. Kinda surprised it didn't break through and eat me."

They stare. I wonder if they even knew that they have a monster in their walls.

"You SAW it." Albus looks at me. "There is a child and a ghost in our infirmary right now. They were found petrified."

"You gotta be joking. A _fantôme_ got stoned?"

"What did it look like? You're the only one able to describe it now."

"Fucking huge, scaly, with a tail. I only saw the rear end."

"There is no denying it," Albus looked at the professors, "The basilisk is loose again."

"Basilisk? You mean I saw a _basilic_..."

I wake up in what appears to be a miniature _hopital_, in a nice clean bed. I passed out. Because if I had been one minute earlier in hiding in that wall... I guess the god of thieves was looking over me. Sometimes I really wish he wouldn't.

French vocabulary:

_château _castle

_fantôme _phantom or ghost

_couvre-feu _ curfew

_magie _ magic

_monstre _monster

_baguettes magique _ magic wands

_Baisez-moi en longueur _A classic phrase of Mildmay's from the Doctrine of Labyrinth series translated into French. "Fuck me sideways."

_Je vous pardonne _"I beg your pardon"

_L'ennemi de mon ennemi est mon ami. _"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

_Quartier Pigalle _ A red-light district in Paris, home to the Museum of Eroticism and the Moulin Rouge.

_Tu __être ridiculous encore _ "You are being ridiculous again."

_oubliette _For those of you who have NEVER seen Labyrinth, this is a place to put people you want to forget. Basically a hole in the ground that you can't get out of from the inside. Mildmay's imagining this little concrete water tank that can't hold water anymore. He's also imagining somebody putting the extremely heavy top on it.

_hopital _ hospital


	2. Chapter 2

Harry Potter and the Heir

Edited by: Writer Chica, who speaks French and has been helping a lot with that part of the story.

Summary: A young thief finds his way to Hogwarts in search of the dark wizards that kidnapped his half-brother, a half-trained wizard. A Harry Potter crossover with The Doctrine of Labyrinths series. Warnings for profanity, violence and sexual references.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Harry Potter series, or the characters of Mildmay and Felix and many elements and people from their pasts. Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, while Mildmay and Felix are characters from a very very well written, intriguing and INCREDIBLE series by Sarah Monette, "The Doctrine of Labyrinths" consisting of the books _Melusine_,_ The Virtu_,_ The Mirador_, and the forthcoming _Corambis_. If ANYONE else has read the series, you are now OBLIGATED to write. We NEED a "Doctrine of Labyrinths" section on or at least something to tide us over until _Corambis_ comes out..

Chapter 2

_Mildmay_

So yeah, I wake up feeling lucky as shit that I ain't the kid lying next to me. He's petrified, with his hands held out like they were holding something. Like he's pantomiming taking a tourist's picture in front of the _T__our d'Eiffel_ and wondering if he should finish and hand the camera back or if he should sell it.

I sit there awhile trying not to lose my shit now that I know there's a fucking_ basilic_ running loose. I've heard a lot of stories, most I thought couldn't be true even if there were hocuses. Now I know better. From what I remember about _basilics_, you see one's eyes dead on, and that's it. You are fucking dead. Kid next to me, my size and age I guess, he got lucky if he saw it through a camera.

Ginevra. _Merde_. It was heading towards the bathroom that she was in. I hope she's okay, but I guess I'll find out sooner or later. And when I find out which of these fucking hocuses hexed Ginny, I'll kill 'em.

I hear a door at the other end of the large _hopital_ room open, and a nurse steps out. She's a little on in her years, but her face has the calm serenity of someone who enjoys helping people, so I relax the muscles I tensed at the sudden noise.

She gives a glance to the other patient, but there's not much she can do. She gives me a nice broad smile.

"Good afternoon. How are you feeling?"

I wonder if she wants an honest answer and can't decide so I ignore the question. "Afternoon?"

Patiently, "Yes, you slept through breakfast, but I can get you some leftovers from lunch if you feel up to eating." Guess some of her patients don't. I nod as I realize only once food is mentioned how fucking hungry I am.

She gets up and heads back to the small room at the end of the hall. I hear her voice but can't make out the words. A minute later and she's back with a tray of sandwiches and some juice. This whole magic thing is getting out of hand. I'm hungry enough to ignore this weirdness though.

When I finish, she's back with some clothes and a towel in her arms, and a frown on her face. I realize after a moment that she's glowering at my hair. "Did somebody use you as a broom, or does dust just collect there naturally?"

I almost smile but stop myself just in time. "That bad?" She nods sagely and starts prodding my hair with her wand. We both sneeze at the dust clouds that escape from the mats.

"Oh, we could never let you into the baths this dirty. The water would need to be replaced five times before you could even start to get clean!"

She grabs a lock of my hair loosely and points her wand at it. I fight to keep still as she mutters "scourgify". I keep my eyes closed, not sure what to expect, and she keeps grabbing more of my black hair. "This'll do the trick." She exclaims happily, and I hazard a peek. A few handfuls of my hair glisten cleanly amongst the rest of the mats. "I never had to use this spell on hair before."

"Glad it works." Great, I'm a guinea pig again. Felix used to test out some of the harmless spells he'd learned on me. Joline had given him an old wand of hers that didn't quite work right for her but worked well enough for Felix. At least with him it was an all-or-nothing deal. She once tried to turn her cat blue with it, but instead ended up looking like somebody hit her with a water balloon filled with bright blue paint.

The nurse-witch said something I didn't quite catch. "Huh?"

"That scar on your cheek. Didn't you see one of those muggle doctors?"

Oh, that. "I got stitches, but we couldn't afford or risk a good doctor, and it got infected."

She gave me a look like she had a few words for him. "If it wasn't already healed I could have done something about it."

"What, so you hocuses don't get any disfiguring injuries?"

"No, there are some magic-caused wounds that will never heal right, and some never heal. It's just," she sighs, "A boy as young as you shouldn't have to live with something like that." I shrug in response.

"Better'n loosing an eye, or being dead." Like what almost happened, like what happened to Joline. Something wet slides down my right cheek. I feel a ghost of another wet thing on the left side of my chin and I look down to see tears falling onto my shirt, running down my nose now that I'm pointed that way. Fuck, things can only get worse when the nurse-witch notices. I hide my face in the blanket covering my legs and try to cry silently like I was five again. Can't get Joline's face, her dead form, out of my mind. Can't stop worrying about Felix, if he's still alive, if there's a goddamn thing I can do about it anyways.

There's a hand patting my back gently, and I wish I could just curl up and disappear. "Are you okay?" She listens quietly for a moment, and I know what my breathing must sound like, all hitched and forced through the silent sobs. "Oh you poor thing..." Her arms wrap around me and I keep still, not sure what to do anymore and not able to stop crying. She ain't Keeper, that much is obvious as she ain't hit me yet to get me to shut up and go back to sleep. "Sh.. sh.. everything will be better now. Don't worry." She keeps whispering shit like that, and it's worse because I know it ain't gonna get better, but it does feel nice to be held. She doesn't let me go until she's absolutely certain I'm no longer crying.

It's almost like she cares.

I let her lead me in a daze out of the _hopital_. I don't realize that we've gotten anywhere until she shoves me into a warm room leaving me with the towel and new clothes. Alone. She says, "Don't come out until you're clean!" The room has this huge ass bath in it, and it's already filled with water and bubbles of different colors. I hope she doesn't want to check behind my ears and shit.

I strip down real quick and jump into the warm water. It's been a long time since I've gotten to go to the baths, and these ones aren't even public, so it's like heaven. I can sit here as long as I want and just relax for once. I'm half asleep when I hear a voice, a girl's voice. I look around warily wondering when the door opened, but the girl comes straight up out of the water, untouched by it. 'Cause ghosts don't get wet of course. I freak out a little, on account of her being dead and all, but she's not trying nothin' so I calm down and decide to start washing my hair.

"What, you aren't mad that I'm peeking?" She giggles out, like its some sort of joke.

I shrug; I've been in baths where nobody cared what sex you were before. "Not much to peek at." She looks at my face a while, and I continue scrubbing at my hair.

"I haven't seen you before. First Years aren't supposed to be in here."

"Not a student." I say when I surface for breath. Funny how I can still hear her underwater.

"Really, then you're the one sneaking around everywhere?" She giggles, "You aren't the Heir of Slytherin, are you?"

"The what-in-the-who-now?" I get this incredulous look.

"You don't know about the Heir? He let loose this monster fifty years ago in the girl's bathroom." I get the odd feeling that that's the same bathroom Ginny went into last time I saw her. "He left a note for the entire school written in blood on the wall!" My blood gets even colder despite the warmth left in the baths. I realize my hand hasn't moved and has just been resting on top of my head awkwardly, so I try to focus on cleaning myself again.

"Was he... Did the monster kill you?" Didn't even realize I'd begun to speak before it got out there.

"Yes." She says sullenly and kinda floats down into the bubbles.

"Sorry." I can't tell her about Ginny, can't let Ginny get into trouble when I know it ain't her fault. I gotta save her.

"Your roots are showing." She replies after a moment with a sad smile. Then with a giggle she flies off leaving me to stare at my reflection in a mirror and curse.

When I finally get out of the baths and dress, it ain't the nice nurse-witch waiting for me, it's the black haired guy from last night, Severus. He gives my hair a look. Guess he thought my hair was like his with how dirty it was last night, too messed up to see the true color where the hair grew out. He starts leading me away without a word like I'm some sort of insect that he doesn't have to worry about. I can tell almost immediately that we're heading back to Albus's office.

He doesn't follow me up. The old man is waiting for me patiently with a smile on his face. It turns to a frown as he sees my hair still dripping wet, combed through by fingers only, and the big red stripe down the middle. I kept the towel on my shoulders to keep from getting soaked, since my hair is long enough to reach my shoulders.

"What did you do to your hair?" Albus says first off with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes.

"Cleaned it?"

"Is it supposed to be like that my boy?"

Don't like being called that, but I guess it's fair for thinking of him as Santa. "Keeper made me dye it, red ain't exactly inconspicuous." I have to repeat the last word a few times to get it recognizable.

"We could see about getting it turned black a bit more, permanently, or we can strip the dye out if you'd prefer that." The old man offers.

"Might as well change it, you've got enough redheads around here that it wouldn't be too weird." I let him do the point and shoot thing with his wand, only it's more of a flick of the wrist like throwing a knife. I look at my shoulder at the red hair I hadn't had since I was four. Ain't gonna be nice glancing in a mirror for a while.

"Did your mother have red hair?" Santa asks cautiously, knowing I might not remember her.

"It's about the only thing I remember about her. That and I don't think she was actually French. Her name was Methony." I can tell he doesn't recognize the name, not that he should, but he seems to be memorizing it. "Anything else you wanted to know, Santa?" I make sure the last word comes out jokingly so he doesn't think I'm some kinda idiot.

He laughs, but says, "I've never thought of myself as Father Christmas, and neither should you my boy. Just call me Albus, please." I give him a ghost of the grin I once had.

"Then just call me Mildmay, this 'my boy' shit is getting on my nerves."

He winces slightly, realizing what I meant. "Well then Mildmay, there is something else I was wondering about. You said you could hide in the walls. Would you mind showing me how you did it?"

I shrug, "Could, but it don't work here. All I gotta do is think about it a little, or sometimes not think." I try it now just to remind myself how it feels, and then I fall on my ass with a thud. The chair I was sitting on is now lying on top of me on it's back, and I think it hit me on the forehead when I fell. "Ow." Fuck, yeah, it hit me. "Milly-Fox, _vous ne vous embarrassez pas_." Keeper's voice again, don't embarrass yourself. I toss the chair off and Albus is giving me a worried but thoughtful look. He's smart, just waits patiently and doesn't try to fawn over me to help me up or anything that'd make me feel even worse about the stupid thing I just did.

"Well, seems like it works even on wood. Do you need to see Madame Pomfrey again?" I can't tell if his concern is genuine or not, can barely tell with Felix and he's not a stranger.

"Who?"

"The school nurse, Madame Pomfrey. You met her this afternoon." I nod, we never did exchange names.

"'Kay, I don't need to see her. This'll stop hurting in a minute. I can still see straight." I'd have said yes if I thought I had a concussion, I ain't a total idiot.

"You do realize that this makes you at least something of a wizard, don't you?" Albus says after I finish resetting the chair and I sit back down.

"No I ain't, it's just this place." I'm not a hocus, none of that magic shit ever made sense to me, not like Felix who could read and pick up a spell faster than Joline could teach them.

"You found this castle. It's spelled to look deserted to muggles. You can also see the ghosts I take it?"

"Yeah." Come to think of it, I never did figure out how I ended up in England, what with _La Manche_, the English Channel, in the way and me never being on a boat in my life. "Musta just picked up something from Felix."

"Mildmay," I think he just stopped himself from saying 'my boy' again, "Magic is not contagious. Our spells are successful at picking up all young witches and wizards from known families with magic, but they are far less reliable in finding muggleborns. If for some reason you never exhibited your powers openly, then it's quite possible we missed you."

He grabs a tattered old hat of his desk, the kind of hat you'd see the Wicked Witch of the West wearing. He tosses it at me and I catch it. "Put it on and see for yourself. This hat should be able to explain your magic for us."

I put it on. The wide brim is kinda large, and I have to tilt it back to keep it from covering my eyes. "Well, what do we have here?" There's a fucking voice in my head, and it sure as fuck ain't mine. "No need to be frightened, I'm just the Sorting Hat after all." I hope I can trust Albus not to curse me with this stupid fucking hat. "I am neither stupid nor... fucking... thank you very much. Am I supposed to be sorting you?"

"No... I think you're just supposed to see if I have magic..." I hope I'm not making myself look like the idiot I know I am.

"Well of course you have magic, otherwise how could you hear me?" Good point. "Also, most first years are a little scared of having me in their heads at first. You aren't the first to have this reaction." Bet they looked like idiots too. "So let's see then. You have used magic before coming here I think. From your memory I'd say you used a variation on apparition, very dangerous that. I wouldn't try it again if I were you. Your powers seem to manifest more as abilities than as actual spells. With training that will change, but it explains why the finding spells the schools use didn't work. What can you do that nobody else seems to be able to do, I wonder?" Pick locks blindfolded? "You don't get lost easily. You've already created a mental map of at least half the castle, including hidden passageways, the moving walls and the moving staircases. That's quite an accomplishment in itself. You also seem to have a sixth sense. Yes, you can tell when things will go wrong." So that's what that particular feeling was, magic. "You're very aware of your emotions, and you listen well to your magical intuition. Subtle talents to be sure, but magical nonetheless."

"So I'm a fucking hocus..."And a subtle one at that. The hat finally shuts up and I take it off, handing it back to Albus.

"That's what I thought. Did it offer any insight as to why our spells didn't find you?" Albus asks, and I get a feeling of what it must have been like to be his student.

"My magic's subtle. I got abilities, not flashy spells like Felix did." Felix knew how to do a few tricks even before getting a wand. He always knew he had magic, never said how he knew though. But I once saw him go up to an obviously rich tourist and ask politely for American money, and she just got a glazed look in her eyes and pulled out her wallet. He said "Thank you very much." and walked off, and then she stared at her empty wallet wondering where it had all gone. Scared the shit out of me at first knowing he could use magic to get his way whenever he wanted.

"Would you like to learn?" He's obviously expecting a positive answer, but I think about it a minute. It would give me the chance to stay here and find my brother, maybe even give me a few spells to help him. And then there's the feeling I have right fucking now, like I gotta stay here, or else. If that feeling's part of my abilities, I'd better listen to it. I know something bad'll happen to Felix if I don't.

"Sure, why not..."

He's already handing me a large book. It's got an English title. Fuck, problem number one in my new plan.

"I can't read English."

He frowns wondering how hard it will be to teach me. Pretty fucking hard, I've already tried. "I have a French first year book somewhere around here, and we can order some more if that will work for you."

"I ain't so good at reading French either, but I can get by." If I read aloud and get help with the big words. This is going to take a long time. He gets up and starts looking for the book. I take the one he had tried to give me and look at the first page. Sounding it out doesn't even help, never did get the hang of how oddly things were spelled in English, and it just doesn't make any sense. Yup this is gonna take a very long time.

French Vocabulary:

_T__our d'Eiffel - _Eiffel Tower

_merde_ - shit


End file.
